Indiana Department of Transportation

Indiana has established itself as a national leader in leveraging private sector capital and innovation to finance, construct and maintain major transportation infrastructure projects.

The Indiana General Assembly passed legislation over the last several years authorizing the Indiana Finance Authority to enter into public-private partnerships (P3s). Indiana’s first P3 was the 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road in exchange for an upfront payment of $3.8 billion.

INDOT reinvested lease proceeds in Major Moves, a comprehensive transportation network construction and improvement program to begin or complete construction on hundreds of statewide transportation projects.

The second Indiana P3 project is the East End Crossing, a new freeway bridge over the Ohio River linking Indiana 265 in Utica, Ind., with Kentucky 841 in Prospect, Ky. The East End Crossing will complete the outer beltway around the Louisville, Ky., metro area and create economic development opportunities in southern Indiana.

Indiana is responsible for overseeing the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the East End Crossing. Following an efficient eight-month procurement process, WVB East End Partners (WVB) was selected as the winning proposer. Their proposal included a construction cost of $763 million, which was $224 million – or 23 percent – less than the project estimate of $987 million.

WVB brought new ideas to the table that will save money for taxpayers and help keep toll rates as reasonable as possible, while satisfying technical and environmental requirements of the project. Construction for the East End Crossing will begin in June 2013, and the bridge is scheduled to open to traffic in October 2016 – eight months ahead of schedule.

The East End Crossing has been hailed by the private sector as the “model” for P3 funding that other states should look at and adopt.

Indiana’s next P3 projects include the I-69 Section 5 in south central Indiana, and the Illiana Corridor, a bi-state east-west expressway project in northwest Indiana.

The I-69 Section 5 project is a 21-mile section of the new I-69 corridor in southwest and central Indiana, part of the nation’s longest contiguous new interstate project currently under construction.

I-69 between Evansville, Ind., and Indianapolis is widely regarded as a key component to the future economic vitality of southwestern Indiana, and will connect an entire region with improved access to jobs, education and healthcare. The 142-mile I-69 corridor was divided into six independent sections, which were approved by the Federal Highway Administration in March 2004.

I-69 Sections 1-3, which total 67 miles between Evansville, and Crane, Ind., opened to traffic in November 2012. Construction is underway on 27 miles of Section 4 between Crane and Bloomington, Ind. Construction is scheduled to begin on Section 5, between Bloomington and Martinsville, Ind., in 2014.

The Illiana Corridor, extending from I-55 in Illinois to I-65 in Indiana, will provide an alternate route for motorists traveling I-80/I-94 around Chicago, relieve traffic congestion on nearby highways, provide access to one of the largest inland port intermodal freight areas in the U.S., and support economic development and job creation.